Our redesign of the Wellington City Libraries website was led by te whakakitenga, the vision, of Wellington City Libraries: ‘te matapihi ki te ao nui’ — ‘opening windows on the wide world.’ The website celebrates and supports Te Whanganui-a-Tara community. With minimalist and modern design, it elevates the library experience for all Wellingtonians, providing a simple and intuitive user experience.

The website has its own unique identity, but is within the Wellington City Council family. We collaborated with Wellington City Council designers to ensure a consistent look and feel with the WCC brand and experience.

The website serves three main behaviour types: quick trips, deep divers, and browsers — we catered to each of these through quick links on the home page and intuitive navigation, while providing ways for people researching whakapapa, genealogy, and local history to go deeper. Accessibility and inclusivity were top of mind, acknowledging the wide community who access the services.

An improved kaimahi experience was an important success factor for the Libraries team. We implemented a Wagtail CMS that’s easy for content editors and administrators to use, and created reusable templates and components that will last well into the future. Super responsive, the website works well on all devices, and integrates seamlessly with the catalogue database.

It was our privilege and honour to create such a crucial website for our community, and a wonderful experience working so collaboratively with the Libraries team.